The application generally relates to the management of machines or equipment. The application relates more specifically to a system for the remote monitoring and/or processing of machine or equipment data in “real time” and the remote management or control of one or more machines or pieces of equipment.
Previously, a user responsible for the operation of several pieces of machinery or equipment was not able to easily keep track of the pieces of machinery once they were deployed at job sites, e.g., agricultural fields or locations. For example, to learn the exact location of a deployed piece of equipment, the user would have to either drive to the assigned job site or contact the operator of the deployed piece of equipment to learn the location of the equipment. However, if the piece of equipment was at the wrong site or the operator was not sure of the location, the user would not be able to learn of the location of the deployed piece of equipment. Similarly, for the user to learn the operational status of a deployed piece of equipment, the user would have to either drive to the assigned job site or contact the operator of the deployed piece of equipment to learn the operational status of the equipment. The lack of easily obtainable position information and operational status information for machinery or equipment can make it difficult for a user to effectively manage the scheduling of jobs and maintenance for the pieces of equipment or machinery.
In addition, when a user wanted to send information to a piece of equipment at a job site, the user would have to transmit the information to the equipment operator by phone or other communication technique, which transmission process could be time consuming and lead to errors being introduced into the information. Further, any information for the user from the piece of equipment had to be sent back to the user using the same time consuming and error prone techniques.
Therefore, what is needed is a system that can enable a user, from a single location, to monitor the location and operational status of equipment or machines and to send and receive information from the equipment or machines.